The noise is back in a way I’d forgotten was even possible,” says Jamie Smith, a senior writer at Newcastle United fanzine The Mag. “There’s elation in the air: in the pubs beforehand, on the walk up to the ground, even through the week. The mojo is back on Tyneside.”
It’s quite a shift to take in. As a Toon fan myself, I've become a connoisseur of coping with failure. Few teams have a taste for bathos quite like that of Newcastle United. The real hyperbole-piercing, expectations-shattering kind, where all hope turns into hopelessness faster than you can say Blaydon Races. This is a club that famously squandered a 12-point lead over Manchester United in 1996; hauled themselves into two successive FA Cup finals in 1998 and 1999 only to fire insipid blanks; and egregiously sacked a national treasure – Sir Bobby Robson – who’d got them to fourth, third, and fifth between 2002 and 2004.
For all their near misses, though, Newcastle were at the very least entertaining back then, their quixotic approach in the transfer market – just buy attackers! – making the despair so much easier to handle. Of course, everything changed in 2007, with the sale of the club to Mike Ashley. Over the next 14 years, hopes for a first domestic trophy since 1955 all but disintegrated. Apathy set in. Far from the swashbuckling side expensively assembled when Sir John Hall bought the club back in 1992, Ashley’s Newcastle were sleepwalkers devoid of ambition, a study, by and large, in mediocrity, with only the Championship seasons and the occasional glimmer of a Europa League run there to puncture the ennui.
But with Ashley gone, the Toon Army are shuffling out into the daylight, blinking in the Saudi sunshine. Since being sold for £300m to a consortium led by the Saudi Arabian government’s sovereign wealth fund, Newcastle have swapped Eddie Howe in for Steve Bruce, and are suddenly a team transformed. Unbeaten in the Premier League this year, with their 2-1 victory at home to Brighton on Saturday making it five wins from the last six, Newcastle have shot up to 14th in the table. They were bottom in November, without a win.
Ryan Fraser, a live wire against Brighton, is one of several players revitalised by the change in owners. Speaking on Match of the Day 10 days ago, the Scottish winger, who also played for Howe at Bournemouth, said: “It’s been unbelievable… Philosophy, togetherness, team spirit – every little thing you can think of he’s came in and changed, to walking into the training ground and seeing things up on the wall that inspire you in the morning. Honestly, I could keep you here for days to tell you what he’s changed and it’s been absolutely brilliant. And the lads have taken to it and not looked back really.”
Emil Franchi, presenter of the excellent Newcastle United podcast True Faith and lifetime Toon fan, has been buoyed by the past few months. “Where there was once dread there is now hope,” he says. “Every match is an event fans aren’t just attending because they have a ticket. They have something to look forward to again. It’s a full transformation from fans hearing about training ground fights between players and manager. It’s pure optimism and pride.”
St James’ Park was “a miserable place” during the Ashley era, says Smith. “There was some conflict between fans over recent years, as those boycotting the games would argue that those attending were enabling Ashley to stay on,” he explains. “Now the sense of togetherness is tangible.”
Defensively, Newcastle are unrecognisable from the team that shipped 80 goals in 2021, the most by a Premier League side in a calendar year. So far in 2022, they’ve conceded just four, the fewest in the top flight. The signings of Dan Burn, a 6ft 7in colossus at centre-back, from Brighton, and Kieran Trippier, so imperious for Newcastle before breaking his metatarsal, from Atletico Madrid, have clearly helped. But as solid as the back four have been, the midfield deserves just as much credit. Take Joelinton. Nobody has been more reinvigorated under Howe than the Brazilian. Where once he cut a desperate, plaintive figure up front, that club-record £40m price tag weighing him down like an anvil, the 25-year-old has now become an integral player in the engine room, his physicality and indefatigable work rate adding drive and ballast to a midfield so used to being stretched and overrun. Against Brentford, no one managed more successful tackles.
“He’s now gained cult status with the fans and has his own flag and song on the terraces,” says Franchi. (Sung to the tune of “She’s Electric” by Oasis, it goes: “He’s Brazilian/ He only cost 40 million/ And we think he’s f***ing brilliant/ It’s JOE-LINT-ON.”) “There is no greater redemption story in football right now than his,” Franchi notes. “Truly an indication of how a good coach can transform players.”
Indeed, the form of Joelinton, Joe Willock and Jonjo Shelvey – a midfield triumvirate dubbed “Jonjo Joe-Jo” by supporters – has kept £34m marquee January signing Bruno Guimaraes out of the starting XI. So impressive have Newcastle been, in fact, that they haven’t had to rush their talismanic French winger Allan Saint-Maximin back from injury. Even without him, Newcastle have been playing their most attractive football in years: rapid counterattacks, jinking runs down the flanks, long, controlled passages of play, with each pass met with an “Olé” from the crowd. Speak to any Newcastle fan, worn down by years of neglect and disrespect from Ashley, and they’ll tell you it’s not even about trophies – at this point, it’s about the team being competitive, on the pitch and in the transfer market. It’s about Newcastle being exciting to watch again, and yes, it’s about the people at the club – the owners, the manager, the players – putting in the effort and cherishing something the fans hold dear.
Now there’s a genuine sense of optimism taking hold on Tyneside. “Amanda Staveley, Mehrdad Ghodoussi, the Reubens, Eddie Howe, Kieran Trippier – they all feel the mood and everyone’s rowing in the right direction,” says Smith. Be that as it may, there’s obviously no hiding from the fact that the new owners come with baggage.
Ever since Roman Abramovich’s purchase of Chelsea paved the way for an era of unparalleled success at the club, Premier League football has become the new sport of kings. Manchester City’s rise has been fuelled by the riches of Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan from the Abu Dhabi royal family; the top flight is awash with cash from investors from China, Egypt, Thailand and the United States. In Newcastle’s case, as with Man City, there are human rights issues, which Toon fan and former England cricketer Steve Harmison addressed at the weekend, telling The Times: “as supporters you can’t have anything to do with what’s outside your pay grade”.
“In an ideal world this would not be how clubs that are, fundamentally, local institutions get taken over,” says Smith, “but this is far from an ideal world. Uber capitalism rules and those with the wealth also hold the influence. The KSA [Kingdom of Saudi Arabia] has an almost omnipotent presence in western life, be that through ownership in Disney, Starbucks, Facebook, etc, or its acceptance as an ally that visits Downing Street and Buckingham Palace. People seem intent on mansplaining to us about the human rights history without stopping to think that we are understanding of this and condemn it, but to eschew their investment in our area would be a lot more of a sacrifice than cancelling a Disney+ subscription may be.”
Alan Shearer, Newcastle’s greatest ever goalscorer, was overwhelmingly in favour of a takeover. “Everyone wanted [it] to happen, it had to happen, and they’ve said they want to try and compete within three to five years, which is a huge statement and one that we all hope comes true,” he said recently. “For far too long, there’s been no investment in the club so hopefully bigger and better things are to come.”
Bigger and better things are already coming, in the stands and on the pitch. After years of failure, Newcastle are daring to dream again. Gone is the indifference. The melancholy. The anguish. Now there’s hope once more. Of course, it’s the hope that kills you, as the cliché goes, but this time, it’s the hope that has made this club feel alive.
